We are in the final stages of the fight in Washington, D.C., to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and everything is leaning in his favor.
The White House says it found nothing objectionable in the FBI’s supplemental background report on Kavanaugh, which was requested by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. White House officials have already referred the report to the Senate for review, where lawmakers will make the final determination on whether to confirm President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
It was unclear whether the White House, which for weeks has raised doubts about the allegations, had completed its review of the FBI interview reports. …
Raj Shah, spokesman for the White House, said in a statement early Thursday morning: “The White House has received the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s supplemental background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh, and it is being transmitted to the Senate.”
He added that senators “have been given ample time to review this seventh background investigation.” Mr. Shah continued: “With this additional information, the White House is fully confident the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”
Fox News reported separately that a source with knowledge of the report says it came back clean for Kavanaugh.
Here’s another thing, though: Even before senators received the FBI report, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., scheduled a procedural vote (“cloture”) for Friday to end debate on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. That means that the final vote to confirm Kavanaugh will likely take place this Saturday.
[Related: ‘Uncorroborated’: Grassley says ‘no hint of misconduct’ in FBI’s Kavanaugh report]
McConnell scheduling a vote to advance the confirmation signals either his confidence he has the votes to put Kavanaugh over the finish line or it’s a wild gamble.
For the Senate majority leader, the FBI report doesn’t have to satisfy all the senators. There’s no way it would anyway, especially considering how certain Democratic lawmakers condemned the report even before receiving it, some even condemning Kavanaugh before his name had been announced in nomination. The only people that really matter here are Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Flake. If the FBI report can satisfy at least two of those senators, that’s the ballgame. Kavanaugh gets confirmed.
The U.S. Senate is currently 51-49 Republican to Democrat. If every Democrat votes against Kavanaugh, McConnell can afford to lose only one moderate Republican. It could be Collins, Murkowski, or Flake (who already put out a statement saying he’d vote “yea,” but we’ll see). If only one of these moderate lawmakers decides ultimately they’re not comfortable confirming Kavanaugh, that brings the vote to 50-50, at which point Vice President Mike Pence will be called in as the tiebreaking vote. Again, that’s ballgame.
The rosiest scenario for Kavanaugh is that the FBI report satisfies all three moderates. That would likely give red state Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., enough room to defect for a “yea” vote as well. With even Manchin on board, Kavanaugh easily gets confirmed.
All that said, whether McConnell has the votes is yet to be seen. Flake is a malleable ball of putty and both Collins and Murkowski have been extremely coy about their thinking.
The White House, for its part, said it feels “very confident” that senators will be “comfortable voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh” after they review the supplemental FBI report.
